EU’s Mora says held ‘intense talks’ with Iran’s Bagheri Kani

Mora made the comment in a twitter post, a day after he began talks with Bagheri Kani in Qatar’s capital Doha.

“Intense talks yesterday and today with Vice Minister Bagheri Kani in Doha on a range of difficult bilateral, regional and international issues, including the way forward on the JCPOA,” he wrote on Twitter.

The JCPOA, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is the official name of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal which the Islamic Republic clinched with the EU as well as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely the US, the UK, France, Britain, China, Russia plus Germany.

The JCPOA was thrown into disarray in May 2018 when the US withdrew from it and reinstated the anti-Iran sanctions lifted under the accord.

Iran began talks with the remaining signatories in April 2021. Those talks however stalled since last year over what Iran has called the lack of a political will from the Western side to abide by its commitments and lift the sanctions in a verifiable manner.

Earlier on Wednesday, Bagheri Kani said that his meeting with Mora was serious and constructive.

The Iranian deputy foreign minister added that he and the EU official had talked over a wide range of issues, including removal of US sanctions as part of efforts to salvage the 2015 agreement.